Voices of Reform: Women's Efforts to Gain Equal Rights
The response to early feminist efforts ranges from silence to outrage. Some working-class and African American women express skepticism that this movement has anything to do with them. There are prominent exceptions like Sojourner Truth, a former sl...
Voices of Reform: Utopian Communities
Several utopian communities emerge in the 1840s organized by reformers in response to slavery and the capitalistic economic system that is becoming a dominant force in the United States. Some of these communities like the Shaker and Oneida are fully...
Voices of Reform: Romanticism and the Transcendentalist Movement
America in the mid-19th century is caught in a whirlwind of change. The country's expansion and growth excite artists and writers caught up in the spirit of romanticism, a cultural and artistic movement that immigrated from Europe in the 1820s. Even...
Voices of Reform: Women's Role in the Abolitionist Movement
Violating conventional mores, women in the North take the abolitionists' cause to their neighborhoods, asking people to join them in signing anti-slavery petitions. Because of slavery's impact on family life and personal dignity, a few women begin s...
Voices of Reform: Abolitionist Movement, The
The first major abolitionist voice in the United States is William Lloyd Garrison who begins publishing The Liberator in 1831. He gathers around him a society of men and women, white and black, who advocate the immediate abolition of slavery in the ...
Voices of Reform: Temperance Movement, The
One of the most influential reform movements of the era is the crusade against drunkenness. Among the working class, people sign pledges not to drink alcohol. Some social elites push temperance as a kind of social control, a way to cut down on socia...
Voices of Reform: Political Dimensions of Anti-Slavery Movement
The moral argument against slavery weakens as it becomes more political, primarily because most Northerners do not want to destroy the Union. The most ardent abolitionist support is found in the Northeast among legislators like John Quincy Adams and...